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Rift Renaissance

When I read my raptr game summary Monday morning I wasn’t shocked at the crap ton of time I spent in Rift the past week, hey I was having fun. Ok, I do have a full time career 40/hr week job and family but the last week I had oral surgery, holiday weekend, plus mandatory furlough day = lots of gaming time. Another pleasant surprise has been Rift’s f2p roll out by Trion and the reaction from the gaming community. When f2p launched, I didn’t pay much attention to Rift news but it’s easy to see now why people are singing Trion’s praises. It’s especially apparent when you compare the f2p cost to SWTOR.

All the areas I’ve been to , with the exception of Ember Isle, has been hopping with folks. There’s a certain game launch feeling to Rift right now and I’m happy that it’s been a success for those folks at Trion.

So, in Rift, I pretty much explored most of the Dendrome area, picked up all the ports, and I took part of some zone events and what not. It’s a nice zone, plenty to do there and work towards with a steady supply of rewards. Early last week, I started seeing more and more people talking about trying out Rift, especially in the LOTRO community. I got in touch with some LOTRO folks through twitter and the next thing I know, I’m accepting an invite to the CTSM guild (that’s the Casual Stroll To Mordor podcast tag). It’s been great, there’s really no price on playing a game with good people, it makes all the difference in the world. So this means I left my old guild but there’s bad blood there. Last year, the guild moved en masse to GW2 when it launched and since my return to Rift, only a handful of us were on most of the time, no group activities, and it was more or less crickets….for someone playing everyday, it just wasn’t a good fit.

Character wise, I’m sitting at lvl 60 on my Cleric and everyone else in CTSM is pretty much just starting out. In Rift that’s not a problem as you can mentor down to the level of the content. One shotting mobs is fun when you are solo farming but in a group, its just plain boring. So, I helped out some guildies, running them through several dungeons, Realm of the Fae and Darkening Deeps. It’s not everyday when I get to roll out my Justicar build as my role du jour has been a Shaman DPS powerhouse.

Realm of Fae

Darkening Deeps

Up until now, I pretty much neglected all the crafting or reputation sections of the game in favor of leveling…but that’s different now. Now, I’m looking for different areas that I can find some fun in and I’m seeing all the things I must do in crafting and notoriety and I still haven’t done anything with dimensions. I bought 2 more crafting slots to learn mining and butchering, yeah!

This will supply my armoring, outfitting and artificing professions. In just a few but long sessions, I leveled mining and butchering to 335 (375 is the max). Outfitting is at 357, armoring and artificing are ~ 150 each. I picked up fishing too and that’s moving much slower but still fun. On Notoriety, I’m working my way up from the lowbie zones and maxing out each succeeding zone. I maxed out my reputation with Quarry Rats (Scarlart Gorge) and Iron Claw Trappers (Scarwood Reach).Next up will be the Runeguard faction in Moonshade Highlands.